Meet me under the clock.

It starts at Grand Central Station-
as all good millennial poems do-
under a stone sky full of misplaced stars.

We’ll get lost on the subway,
finding shelter from the rain
under tattered copies of The Village Voiceand not quite kiss.

Whiskey burned throats laughing and
stumbling over explanations for our infant association.
Saxophones and car horns,
your hand on the small of my back type electricity,
seems to power the entire borough.

“I’m not a romantic writer,”
he casually offers her
and immediately counters with a Guinness in one calloused hand
and an entire universe in the other.

Breathing over Brooklyn coffee,
breathing broken French in my ear,
never hearing my name sound so beautiful
as it does when I wake up next to your wood-smoke hair.

And maybe it’s the subtle fear
of the world ending any moment
which makes me long to pull you-
one calloused palm at a time-